Statement from Councilman Sal DiCiccio Defending Phoenix Police Officers

<div class="ExternalClass0BAB0ABE12024550A1936D439E94BE6D">"This new attack on police is shameful. Nine years of social media posts from over 2,000 officers and 1,000 retirees. Less than 200 'offensive posts total.' That is not a 'culture' of anything. A couple of points:First, take any 3,000 people from the general public and subject their accounts to the same level of scrutiny and see what you come up with. Second, anti-police groups are surprised when the cops they call racists, Nazis, pigs, and murderers resent it? Get real. They still respond to every call and do their best to help, regardless of how the caller feels about them. Period. Third, much of this only rises to the level of 'hate' if you're a liberal snowflake. Lastly, individual cases that do rise to the level of hate will be investigated, and those individuals punished, but to smear our entire department for the words - not actions, words - of a handful of officers is, at best, disingenuous, and is truly insulting to the literally thousands of men and women who put their lives on the line for us every single day and do so with honor. This is an attempt to shut down free speech, nothing more, nothing less. What this group is doing is no different than when the city of Phoenix wanted to go out and record all the people coming out to protest, and I stopped them because what they were really trying to do was chill free speech - it's targeting. In both cases. And it needs to stop. We need to judge people on their actions, understand that free speech is messy, and stop trying to stifle and persecute people for having opinions we don't like." </div>

6/4/2019 8:00:00 PM

Nick Valenzuela

602-495-5405